whole time and
attention to female conversation, and the little offices of gallantry,
never distinguishes himself in the literary world. But notwithstanding
this, without the fatigue and application of severe study, he often
obtains, by female interest, that which is denied to the merited
improvements acquired by the labor of many years.

MONASTIC LIFE.

The venerable _Bede_ has given us a very striking picture of Monastic
enormities, in his epistle to Egbert. From this we learn that many young
men who had no title to the monastic profession, got possession of
monasteries; where, instead of engaging in the defence of their country,
as their age and rank required, they indulged themselves in the most
dissolute indolence.

We learn from Dugdale, that in the reign of Henry the Second, the nuns
of Amsbury abbey in Wiltshire were expelled from that religious house on
account of their incontinence. And to exhibit in the most lively colors
the total corruption of monastic chastity, bishop Burnet informs us in
his "History of the Reformation," that when the nunneries were visited
by the command of Henry the VIII. "whole houses almost, were found whose
vows had been made in vain."

When we consider to what oppressive indolence, to what a variety of
wretchedness and guilt, the young and fair inhabitants of the cloister
were frequently betrayed, we ought to admire those benevolent authors
who, when the tide of religious prejudice ran very strong in favor of
monastic virginity, had spirit enough to oppose the torrent, and to
caution the devout and tender sex against so dangerous a profession. It
is in this point of view that the character of Erasmus appears with the
most amiable lustre; and his name ought to be eternally dear to the
female world in particular. Though his studies and constitution led him
almost to idolize those eloquent fathers of the church who have
magnified this kind of life, his good sense and his accurate survey of
the human race, enabled him to judge of the misery in which female youth
was continually involved by a precipitate choice of the veil. He knew
the successful arts by which the subtle and rapacious monks inveigled
young women of opulent families into the cloister; and he exerted his
lively and delicate wit in opposition to so pernicious an evil.

In those nations of Europe where nunneries still exist, how many lovely
victims are continually sacrificed to the avarice or absurd ambition of
inhu